The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Written by Walter Isaacson
Narrated by Kathe Mazur
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
A Best Book of 2021 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, and The Washington Post
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.
Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.
The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.
Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?
After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is an “enthralling detective story” (Oprah Daily) that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.
Editor's Note
Cracking the DNA code…
Superstar science and tech biographer Walter Isaacson (“Steve Jobs,” “Leonardo da Vinci,” “Einstein”) is back with a profile of the woman who revolutionized modern medicine by cracking the DNA code. Get to know Nobel Prize-winning scientist Jennifer Doudna, from her early days as a budding scientist to her pioneering work creating CRISPR, the tool that allows us to edit genes. This is a fascinating look at how Doudna unlocked the ability for human-made medical miracles and continues to grapple with the resulting moral issues.
Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.
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Reviews for The Code Breaker
336 ratings21 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I read some of this book but listened to the remainder on a Scribd audiobook. This is my first Walter Issacson book and I can see why he is a much-celebrated biographer. He really gets into the details of the story and the detailed processes of the field he writes about. The story of DNA and RNA is a field that many people do not contain great knowledge about. Although I have been interested in science most of my life, I do not have a great background in chemistry and Issacson made me feel right at home listening to such a complex area. He brought the story of Jennifer Doudna to life that made me feel as though I know a lot about her and her motivation. This is a story that celebrates women in a field that many have been discouraged from entering for various reasons. Being a fan of science and having read many scientific books and publications, this book was a delight to read and I highly recommend it.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5While reading silently I would get bogged down by what I perceived as science
It was great to combine listening with reading - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Walter Isaacson did it again, opening up another daunting realm, this time microbiology. The book delves into crucial and timely issues confronting nothing less than the future of the human species. In this compelling account, Isaacson poses the questions, laying out the slippery slope we find ourselves in. What are the answers? TBD.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Awesome book !!!! Learnt a lot about Viruses and bacteria.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Main lesson: thank God my career is not in academia
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Isaacson has done it again, delivered a masterpiece with beautiful analysis. You can see the connection between da Vinci - Einstein - Steve jobs - and the crispr team
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why Jennifer’s name is smaller and seems like a detail where Walter’s name is half of the book cover ????
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great book that helps you understand the impact of biological researches on our life as a humanity. Detailed yet precise. Also shows you the other face of ongoing competitive word of science, which confirms that human nature prevails.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book. It is a must-read for anyone interested in investing in biotechnology as it relates to the emerging field of genomics. This book is entertaining because it not only provides scientific details about DNA, mRNA, and so on, but it tells the human story of Jennifer Doudna's interactions with peers, her and their anxieties, fears, competition, desire to be friends, and so on. It's a great book!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5BEWARE Exciting Reading
This book has me watching elementary YouTube videos on cell anatomy and elementary biology. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Informative and thought provoking! An incredible story. I highly recommend.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A tremendously inspirational book. A positive statement to our negative times.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What made this book so great is wanting to become a bio hacker !
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing read! Inspiring stories of legends of the modern era. Great audio quality.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incredibly exciting, incredibly inspiring, incredibly frightening, and surreally current history all rolled up in the talent of one of America’s great storytellers.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating information! Very complicated material made very understandable. People were fascinating
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic!!! Recommended to all interested in science and to all who has strong opinions on gene editting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazingly written! As a layperson I could comprehend the intricate conversations. I love it!!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating and relevant. Science that reads like a mystery story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very important book for anyone interested in the genomic revolution. A modern day double helix by Watson and crick. This book was brought to my attention by a wall street journal article which polled famous people on the best books they read in 2021. This was mentioned by quite a few. A must read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great explanation of intersection of basic science with everyday problems and their solutions